Reviews (20)

In his own words
For anyone fascinated by the only president in history to resign from office, Richard Nixon in his own words provides the first-hand account of the reasons for the events that triggered a national civil and presidential history crisis. "I saw Watergate as politics pure and simple," Nixon writes, adding he'd "play it tough" because his "enemies" would. But Nixon's downfall is put a part of this extensively written memoir, focusing also on the ex-president's incredible achievements as a peacemaker and his rise to national recognition as a fervent anti-Communist and his about-face in reaching out to the world's two most powerful communist countries (China and the former Soviet Union) once in office. Much of Nixon's own memories have been written in other publications, but this one adds (to a very limited degree) some reasons for the abstracts that were Richard Nixon. He tells us the night of his first presidential race loss to John F. Kennedy was the longest of his life, hinting that the election embittered him the rest of his public life. Yet, 12 years later, in 1972, when he was overwhelmingly endorsed by the American public in one of history's most lopsided presidential races, Nixon admittedly was unable to savor the mandate of the nation's choice, instead caught in some inexplicable dark mood caused by, Nixon profers, the looming storm of Watergate, his party's failure to wrest the House and Senate from the Democrats, or whatever else was at the core of the very man himself. Nixon, in his own words, is a mandatory addition to any Nixon library, and its historical value is apparent even if the reader disagrees with the man's explanation for some of the petty characteristics that brought down what may well have been one of the most productive presidential administrations in history.

Definitely Worth Reading
Nixon's book is excellent reading and a must for all those who appreciate history. He's a good writer, and easy to pick up for the average reader. Scholars will also enjoy it. There's a good chunk of the American Century covered in this tome: he becomes a Congressman in the late 1940s, and you get to learn about HUAC and the Alger Hiss case which made him famous. Then he is quickly a Senator until he's tapped by Ike to be Vice-President. Next his failed presidential bid and governor bid of the '60s. Then the comeback that no one thought was possible. Nixon is really insightful in this book. He spends the most time on his presidency and it's really interesting. It ends after his presidency in the '70s, so you have over 25 years of political history plus his personal life before that. It's a very long book (1000+ pages) but well worth it.

Still impressed with the book
I first read this memoir 20 years ago. I was in my early twenties but even then it caught my interest and held it throughout the whole book. I have recently looked through it again. It's a lengthy tome, but well-written, with good characterization, and details that enlivens events for the reader. It was the first of its genre to turn me onto other presidential memoirs but none I read afterwards ever matched the depth of his.
The book not only describes his personal and family life but key players and world events at the time, a good study in political history now. There was plenty going on during his presidential years, a war abroad and civil unrest at home. He did not end the war as soon as he should have - the memoirs could not dodge this, as well they should not. That fact alone, and the loss of life entailed by it, mattered more to me than Watergate ever did.
But I liked and respected Nixon, even during the Watergate years. And in his memoirs, he was candid about his actions of those days and accepting of the consequences.
Whatever else history may say about him, Richard Nixon had been a major political figure for many years of his life, served his country and cared deeply about it.

Nixon's Take On History
My girlfriend asked me what the heck I was doing reading Nixon's memoirs. I said, "because it's always good to know what the bad guy's are up to." I'm certainly no Nixon fan. I wasn't before I read this book and I'm not now that I've read it. But, like any presidential memoir (LBJ's The Vantage Point is another example), they have to be read not as an impartial historical text but as a political document in which the ex-president attempts to establish his own legacy before his critics have the chance. Nixon's is no different. It's well-written, fairly candid, and, for anyone interested in the amazingly tumultuous times he lived in, very interesting to read his take on his life. Just always remember, though, that this is how HE wanted us to see his life.

Other than Nixon, no man knows his history...
Despite all the garbage that is proliferated about Nixon today, anyone who reads RN's work will see the true Richard Nixon. Although you may detest his politics, you will understand his perspective and why he was motivated to living in the "fishbowl," was an ardent anti-communist, why he bombed Cambodia, and why he disliked the media. Although the reader may disagree with RN, he or she will understand his idealist goals of ending and inaugurating a new era of peace. Unfortunately, watergate happened and the U.S. would not recover until the Reagan administration. A must read for any person interested in Nixon and the work is far more resourceful than any of RN's biographers. ... Read more

Book Description

When John Nash won the Nobel prize in economics in 1994, many people were surprised to learn that he was alive and well. Since then, Sylvia Nasar's celebrated biography, the basis of a new major motion picture, has revealed the man. The Essential John Nash reveals his work--in his own words. This book presents, for the first time, the full range of Nash's diverse contributions not only to game theory, for which he received the Nobel, but to pure mathematics, in which he commands even greater acclaim among academics. Included are nine of Nash's most influential papers, most of them written over the decade beginning in 1949.

From 1959 until his astonishing remission three decades later, the man behind the concepts "Nash equilibrium" and "Nash bargaining"--concepts that today pervade not only economics but nuclear strategy and contract talks in major league sports--had lived in the shadow of a condition diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia. In the introduction to this book, Nasar recounts how Nash had, by the age of thirty, gone from being a wunderkind at Princeton and a rising mathematical star at MIT to the depths of mental illness.

In his preface, Harold Kuhn offers personal insights on his longtime friend and colleague; and in introductions to several of Nash's papers, he provides scholarly context. In an afterword, Nash describes his current work, and he discusses an error in one of his papers. A photo essay chronicles Nash's career from his student days in Princeton to the present. Also included are Nash's Nobel citation and autobiography.

The Essential John Nash makes it plain why one of Nash's colleagues termed his style of intellectual inquiry as "like lightning striking." All those inspired by Nash's dazzling ideas will welcome this unprecedented opportunity to trace these ideas back to the exceptional mind they came from. ... Read more

Reviews (12)

Fascinating Reading
Even without the Nobel Prize for Economics, the outstanding movie by Ron Howard ("A Beautiful Mind"), or the exceptional biography by Sylvia Nasar (also "A Beautiful Mind"), Professor John Nash would a legend. While cursed with severe mental illness, Dr. Nash was and is an extraordinary man. His contributions to game theory were so ahead of their time it took over 30 years for economists and business leaders to apply them fully. When they were applied, they advanced everything from international trade talks and arms control treaties, to radio frequency auctions and the study of evolutionary biology. Dr. Nash's work has had a profound, highly practical impact on negotiation and decision making throughout business and government. He created a path toward win-win solutions to complex, multi-party agreements.

This book is largely a collection of Dr. Nash's own writings, each a significant contribution to mathematics or economics. Nash's papers are thoughtfully introduced and explained - thankfully so given the complexity of Nash's writings. Also included is Nash's own touching and revealing autobiography.

The result is a compelling glimpse inside the thought processes of a genius - a beautiful mind indeed. Thanks to Harold Kuhn and Sylvia Nasar for pulling this wonderful collection together.

An excellent compilation
Having written about the life of the mathematician John Nash in the excellent biography "A Beautiful Mind", Sylvia Nasar teams up with the mathematician Harold W. Kuhn to produce a book that introduces the mathematical contributions of Nash, something that was done only from a "popular" point of view in Nasar's biography. For those who have the background, this book is a fine overview of just what won Nash acclaim in the mathematical community, and won him a Nobel Prize in economics.

It is always easy to dismiss ideas as trivial after they have been discovered and have been put into print. This is apparently what John von Neumann did after discussing with Nash his ideas on noncooperative games, dismissing his ideas as a mere "fixed point theorem". At the time of course, the only game-theoretic ideas that had any influence were those of von Neumann and his collaborator, the Princeton economist Oskar Morgenstern. The rejection of ideas by those whose who hold different ones is not uncommon in science and mathematics, and, from von Neumann's point of view at the time, he did not have the advantage that we do of examining the impact that Nash's ideas would have on economics and many other fields of endeavor. Therefore, von Neumann was somewhat justified, although not by a large measure, in dismissing what Nash was proposing. Nash's thesis was relatively short compared to the size on the average of Phd theses, but it has been applied to many areas, a lot of these listed in this book, and others that are not, such as QoS provisioning in telecommunication and packet networks. The thesis is very readable, and employs a few ideas from algebraic topology, such as the Brouwer fixed point theorem.

The paper on real algebraic manifolds though is more formidable, and will require a solid background in differential geometry and algebraic geometry. However, from a modern point of view the paper is very readable, and is far from the sheaf and scheme-theoretic points of view that now dominate algebraic geometry. It is interesting that Nash was able to prove what he did with the concepts he used. The result could be characterized loosely as a representation theory employing algebraic analytic functions. These functions are defined on a closed analytic manifold and serve as well-behaved imbedding functions for the manifold, which is itself analytic and closed. These manifolds have been called 'Nash manifolds' in the literature, and have been studied extensively by a number of mathematicians.

I first heard about John Nash by taking a course in algebraic topology and characteristic classes in graduate school. The instructor was discussing the imbedding problem for Riemannian manifolds, and mentioned that Nash was responsible for one of the major results in this area. His contribution is included in this book, and is the longest chapter therein. Here again, the language and flow of Nash's proof is very understandable. This is another example of the difference in the way mathematicians wrote back then versus the way they do now. Nash and other mathematicians of his time were more 'wordy' in their presentations, and this makes the reading of their works much more palatable. This is to be contrasted with the concisness and economy of thought expressed in modern papers on mathematics. These papers frequently employ a considerable amount of technical machinery, and thus the underlying conceptual foundations are masked. Nash explains what he is going to do before he does it, and this serves to motivate the constructions that he employs. His presentation is so good that one can read it and not have to ask anyone for assistance in the understanding of it. This is the way all mathematical papers should be written, so as to alleviate any dependence on an 'oral tradition' in mathematical developments.

Nash's proof illuminates nicely just what happens to the derivatives of a function when the smoothing operation is applied. The smoothing operator consists of essentially of extending a function to Euclidean n-space, applying a convolution operator to the extended function, and then restricting the result to the given manifold. Nash gives an intuitive picture of this smoothing operator as a frequency filter, passing without attenuation all frequencies below a certain parameter, omitting all frequencies above twice this parameter, and acting as a variable attenuator between these two, resulting in infinitely smooth function of frequency.

The next stage of the proof of the imbedding theorem is more tedious, and consists of using the smoothing operator and what Nash calls 'feed-back' to construct a 'perturbation device' in order to study the rate of change of the metric induced by the imbedding. Nash's description of the perturbation process is excellent, again for its clarity in motivating what he is going to do. The feed-back mechanism allows him to get a handle of the error term in the infinitesimal perturbation, isolating the smoother parts first, and handling the more difficult parts later. Nash reduces the perturbation process to a collection of integral equations, and then proves the existence of solutions to these equations. A covariant symmetric tensor results from these endeavors, which is CK-smooth for k greater than or equal to 3, and which represents the change in the metric induced by the imbedding of the manifold. The imbedding problem is then solved for compact manifolds by proving that only infinitesimal changes in the metric are needed. The non-compact case is treated by reducing it to the compact case. The price paid for this strategy is a weakening of the bound on the required dimension of the Eucliden imbedding space.

The last chapter concerns Nash's contribution to nonlinear partial differential equations. I did not read this chapter, so I will omit its review.

Good Collection of Nash Writings!
I only rate books that I really enjoy reading. While this one has some techy chapters, readers without a strong math background can still enjoy it.

Professor Nash's story was brought to life by the movie, this book shows why. One day his manifold theory will rule! ;)

excellent
Personally, I found this book to be very interestring. The proofs and ideas are presented in clear and non-rigomorphic fashion. One is able to read the works of Nash in the way he himself presented them, and hopefully appropriate some mental strategies used by this genius. There is much that goes on behind the scene of creation of proofs. I think mathematicians of today would greatly benefit from availability of larger number of books which would contain the mathematical works in the way they were originally presented. This is certainly a major step in that direction.

A Most Welcome Mathematical Banquet
I can't begin to express how deeply satisfying it was to peruse these papers by John Nash. You almost felt you were right there at his side, as he penned them.

There is even something in the book for non-mathematical types: Sylvia Nasar's Introduction and the autobiographical essay (Chapter Two). But for me the greatest interest resided in the remaining chapters: 4-11.

Of these, I particularly enjoyed reading the original presentation of Nash's Thesis on 'Non-Cooperative Games' (Chapter 6), and was fascinated not only with the air-tight logic of his proofs, but the use of hand written-in symbols.

Of course, Chapter 7 is just the re-hashing of Ch. 6, but in proper type-set form, rather than Nash's original script. But - give me the former any day! Reading the original form and format almost made me feel like Nash's Thesis aupervisor, including the same excitement of a new discovery!

Chapter 8 'Two person Cooperative Games' nicely extends the mathematical basis to cover this species of interaction.(And in many ways, people will find the cooperative game model easier to understand than the non-cooperative).

Chapter 9 is important because it delves into the issue of parallel control, and logical functions such as used in high speed digital computers. This chapter was of much interest to me since particular aspects of parallel control figured in my own model of consciousness - recently presented in Chapter Five of my book, 'The Atheist's Handbook to Modern Materialism'. Astute readers who read both books will quickly see the analog between the Schematic of Logical Unit Function (p. 122) and my own Figure 5-13 ('Development of Neural Assemblies', p. 156).

I enjoyed Chapter 10, 'Real Algebraic Manifolds' because of my ongoing interest in Algebraic Topology, and especially homology and homotopy theory. In his chapter, Nash presents a cornucopia of methods for representation, which I am still playing with for different manifolds.

Chapter 11, 'The Imbedding Problem for Riemannian Manifolds', is a delight for anyone familiar with Einstein's General Relativity, or even differential geometry. When you read through this chapter, you also will understand why Nash is still very interested (and involved) in research to do with general relativity and cosmology. Particularly fun for me was his section on 'Smoothing of Tensors' (p. 163) and 'Derivative Size Concept for Tensors' (p. 164).

Chapter 12, 'Continuity of Solutions of Parabolic and Elliptic Equations' is like 'dessert' for anyone who is intensely interested (as I am) in modular functions, which themselves are related intimately to elliptic equations.

In short, I think this book has something for both mathematicians and non-math types alike. Obviously, the former are likely to get more out of it, so the question the latter group must ask is whether the purchase is worth satiating their curiosity about Nash.

I know how I would answer, even if I couldn't tell a derivative from a differential. However, this book can be read on all kinds of levels, and that's the beauty of it. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

The most influencial book I have ever read
Any student of foreign policy simply must read this book. In fact, anyone with a remote interst in international affairs would benefit from its contents. Kissinger presents an honest and intimate assessment of world events from 1968 to early 1973. His comments on personal relationships and candid opinions of world leaders like De Gaul, Mao, Nixon, Brandt, Brezhnev, Gandhi (Indira), Rabin and others are insightful. Kissinger covers world event touching on Vietnam, India/Pakistan relations, Middle Eastern conflicts, Russian and Chinese relationships and domestic affairs among others. The reader is afforded touching personal insight into many events that shaped the cold war world and continue to impact foreign policy today. It is a privlege to read someone with so vast an intellect that is as critical of himself as he is of other policy makers. The book is as often serious as it is funny. Kissinger honestly portrays his personal point of view on all the issues facing him. It is not every day we get to read about the nuances of policy making with such honesty and clarity. Kissinger also provides behind the scene insight into the Nixon presidency and all its ravaging conflicts and triumphs. If world issues and politics interest you then this book will as well.

"The Longest Journey Begins With The First Step"
The title of this review stems from an ancient Chinese proverb. Henry A. Kissinger's book, White House Years is the first of a three-volume trilogy that covers his remarkable career. This initial book begins with his appointment as National Security Advisor to Richard M. Nixon January 1969, and ends with the initialing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973. Kissinger lets the reader know early on, they were under no illusions their journey would be easy or joyous.

He paints a vivid picture of Lyndon Johnson at Nixon's inauguration. If a political heavyweight like L.B.J. could be humbled by (sic) "Veetnam" no one could expect an easy time. Nixon, who had made a career of exhorting political opponents to, "Get tough with the Communists," now had his turn. He would either succeed where his predecessors had failed, or share L.B.J.s fate.

A series of opportunities to "get tough" with the Communists soon followed. The Soviets continued to harass Berlin; the Strateg!ic Arms Limitation (SALT) Talks provided critics from the right and left; West German leader Willie Brandt's Ostpolitik threatened the cohesion of the Atlantic Alliance and the Soviets' establishment of a submarine base at Cienfuegos, Cuba created a situation reminiscent of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Also, the election of Salvador Allende in Chile threatened to introduce a second, Communist state into the Western Hemisphere. Elsewhere, a crisis was brewing between India and Pakistan, and the powder keg in the Middle East threatened to explode at any time.

All these things occurred while the bulk of our military forces were mired in a seemingly endless stalemate in Vietnam that was tearing our nation apart and steadily draining both our coffers and our national resolve. Any of them had the potential to bring the two nuclear equipped superpowers into direct confrontation at any time. Kissinger calmly states: "Statesmen do not have the right to ask to serve only in simple t!imes." The early '70's were anything but, "simple times."

White House Years is a first-person account from a key player in each of these crises. Kissinger takes us step-for-step through the decision-making process they undertook before each action. These deliberations led to the most spectacular diplomatic initiative of our time: Nixon's historic trip to The Peoples Republic of China! The diplomatic opportunities made possible by this trip still shape our world today. Among other things it made Hanoi serious about negotiating an end to the War in Vietnam.

Dr. Kissinger narrates the maddening, secret negotiations with North Vietnam's Le Duc Tho in Paris. The differences between what the Communists were feeding the Western media and what they were saying behind closed doors makes the reader both loathe and admire them for their political skill. Their efforts finally led to the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. Kissinger sincerely believed South Vietnam would surv!ive. Unfortunately, he was wrong.

White House Years reads like a Greek tragedy. The reader gets excited and then remembers how it all ends. The very secretiveness that produced spectacular successes also sowed the seeds that would lead to Nixon's self-destruction.

I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the War in Vietnam and/or international relations. The conduct of international diplomacy today is still unquestionably influenced by the events narrated here. I am much better informed for having read it. You will be as well!

A Monumental Work
Dr. Kissinger's book is a must read for those wishing to gain insight into the politics of the diplomatic process. He takes great pains to be fair in his assessment of a number of personalities from President Nixon, to Indira Gandi. Self-observations are modest to the point of self-deprecation. The chapters in which he chronicles the Nixon Administration's involvement in the Vietnam War is worth the price of the book. Mr. Kissinger's observation of this tumultuous time in our history is candid, sometimes sad, but scholarly without being pedantic. I highly recommend this book. ... Read more

Book Description

An enormously entertaining compendium of witticisms, anecdotes, and trivia about Winston Churchill by a former White House speechwriter. ... Read more

Reviews (19)

A Delightful Book About A Great Man........
Winston Churchill is one of the greatest men of our or any other time. His intelligence, wit, humor and clarity of thought is well captured in this great little book. It's broken down into several sections and it's a quick read. It's a book that I keep going back to!

Reader from Boston, MA
This book is an excellent compendium of the wit of Winston Churchill. Often acerbic, frequently self-deprecating, but always humorous and witty while exactly on point, Churchill's humor and wit collected in this book would be of great value even to professional comedy writers. The book also tells much about the man, Churchill, himself, and his inner strength, sense of proportion, his mastery of the English language and his uncanny ability to use the English language masterfully and to its maximum affect -- the qualities that made Churchill such an effective and potent world leader during the bleakest days of World War II.

Power of Words in the Majestic Battle of Ideas
In this book, James C. Humes gives his audience an excellent opportunity to conjure up a mental picture of Winston Churchill and his legacy. As a renaissance man, Churchill was more than a skilled politician and a gifted soldier. Perhaps more importantly, Churchill was a man of inspired words, whose work was ultimately crown by the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953. Churchill often was far from politically correct and did not hesitate to say, write and do what he thought was right. Churchill's bluntness did not make him dear to everybody.

Humes first brings to light many of the great thoughts of Churchill in "Observations and Opinions." Humes classifies key words alphabetically without giving context so that readers can easily find a quote of their liking about a specific subject. Some readers might get frustrated about it if they are not familiar with the key milestones in the life and career of Churchill. These readers can read books such as "Churchill a Life", "Churchill a Study in Greatness", "Clementine Churchill The Biography of a Marriage" or "Winston and Clementine The Personal Letters of the Churchills" to fill in the gaps in their knowledge of Churchill for that purpose.

Humes forges ahead in a similar way in "Orations and Perorations", "Coiners of Phrases", "Saints and Sinners" and "Escapades and Encounters." In these sections, Humes is usually very good at giving his audience the context so that readers better understand where Churchill was coming from. Hours of fun and laughter are virtually guaranteed, especially in "Escapades and Encounters."

Churchill's witticism, wisdom and oratory probably reached their climax in the faithful summer of 1940 when Britain stood alone against the Nazi monster. Churchill galvanized by his words and actions the civilized world to soldier on when the horizon seemed hopelessly bleak. As President Franklin Roosevelt said to his aide Harry Hopkins after listening to one of Churchill's radio broadcasts during that period: "As long as that old bastard is in charge, Britain will never surrender." The words of Churchill will continue to resonate for a long time in the heart and soul of humanity. Churchill's words will further shine like diamonds in the night when humanity loses hope from time to time.

Your finest hours will be spent reading this book!!!
Be forewarned. The words of Sir Winston Churchill are not for everyone. If you are too timid, sensitive, politically correct, Victorian in outlook, or do not drink, you are not the ideal audience for this book. However, if you love stirring speeches, great epigrams, and explosive wit, then Winston is your man. Divided into several sections, the first deals with epigrams concerning subjects in general, for example; History--"A nation that forgets its past has no future." The next section deals with excepts from his most famous speeches: Their Finest Hour, Blood, Sweat, and Tears, etc. Then, Coiner of Phrases, a section dealing with famous words or sayings first attributed to him, such as Destroyer, for "light search and destroy vessel." Next, Saints and Sinners, a section reserved for his opinions of the great (and nearly great) of the world; his opinion of former Prime Minister David Lloyd George: "He could talk a bird out of a tree." Finally, the last (and best) section, Escapades and Encounters (aka Winston's Wit). Yes, here we have the famous Lady Nancy Astor story (I won't spoil it for you here), another famous (and politically incorrect) encounter with Labourite Bessie Braddock, and the hilarous story The World Is Not My Oyster, in which the eighty-six year old Churchill blames his indisposition on the oysters served at the Savoy Grill, not the numerous glasses of wine he consumed there. So, grab a glass of your favorite port or sherry (or a snifter of brandy, if you must), sink into a comfortable chair with a favorite snack and this book, and INDULGE YOURSELF. Trust me, it will be one (or more) of your finest hours.

Words, wit, Winston, Wow !
I am a big fan of these types of collections, and have been distressed in recent years as series publishers have pumped them out. James C. Humes, however, avoids the path of ready material and produces a book of Churchilliana as comprehensive and broad as the man himself.

There are all the favorites here: the Lady Nancy Astor tea story, the acerbic prepositional rejoinder to the supercilious editing of an assistant, the choice between sherry and adultery, and so on. More importantly, one begins to acquire a notion of the extent to which Churchill, as Shakespeare before him did, has shapped our language, our thoughts, and our clichés: "trade no aid", Iron Curtain, and "blood, sweat, and tears."

Every page is a gem, and this is the perfect book for bed or bathroom, if you are a lover of words, wit, and Winston.

p.s. The very nice, concise introduction by Richard M. Nixon is a quirky little joy as well. ... Read more

Book Description

Hollingdale's biography remains the single best account of the life and works for the student or nonspecialist. This classic biography of Nietzsche was first published in the 1960s and was enthusiastically reviewed at the time. Long out of print, it is now reissued with its text updated in the light of recent research. The biography chronicles Nietzsche's intellectual evolution and discusses his friendship and breach with Wagner, his attitude toward Schopenhauer, and his indebtedness to Darwin and the Greeks. It follows the years of his maturity and his mental collapse in 1889. The final part of the book considers the development of the Nietzsche legend during his years of madness. R. J. Hollingdale, one of the preeminent translators of Nietzsche, allows Nietzsche to speak for himself in a translation that transmits the vividness and virtuosity of Nietzsche's many styles. This is the ideal book for anyone interested in Nietzsche's life and work who wishes to learn why he is such a significant figure for the development of modern thought. R. J. Hollingdale has translated and edited several of Nietzsche's texts, as well as other prestigious German thinkers.Mr. Hollingdale worked in the editorial department of the Guardian for over twenty years and has written book reviews for the Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

A Man Ahead of His Time
Hollingdale's biography/analysis of Nietzsche and his philosophy was an unexpected delight. I had already read Walter Kaufmann's translations of Nietzsche's major works when I came upon Hollingdale's volume; expecting little, I was amazed at the additional insights the author offered into Nietzsche's thought and world outlook. I would recommend this book to anyone who is new to Nietzsche - who would like to learn something of his philosophy, but who has held back because they feel Nietzsche, and perhaps, philosophy in general, is too remote or difficult.
Believe me, Hollingdale's volume will usher you, gently, into Nietzsche's world, and make you hungry for more. Nietzsche, himself, in "Thus Spake Zarathustra" had his protaganist announce, "I am the railing by the rushing torrent - grasp me if you can; your crutch I am not!" Like Nietzsche, Hollingdale does not seek disciples -- he explains the basic concepts of Nietzsche's philosophy with cool detachment, and offers them to the reader as a launchpad from which the reader can, if he/she wishes, soar, exploring Nietzsche's world for themselves, drawing their own conclusions. Nietzsche, the enemy of blind adherence, would have heartily approved such an approach. This is the man who said, "if you wish to strive after peace of soul and happiness, then believe; if you wish to be a disciple of truth, then inquire!" Enjoy the Journey!

A book that does Nietzsche justice
Anyone interested in a lucid,fair,nonsense and distortion-free overview of Nietzsche's writings and life could do no better than to start here.Hollingdale avoids what the usual crowd of Nietzsche biographers and explainers and interpreters stumble over.Here you will not find the deconstructionist nonsense of Gilles Deleuze or the turning of Nietzsche into a contradictor of his own writings a la Heidegger.Perhaps no philosopher in history has had so many bad advocates and screeching and intentionally misleading and misinterpreting critics as Nietzsche.So much fetid,vapid and idiotic writing has enveloped Nietzsche that it threatens to destroy the philosopher altogheter.The future of Nietzsche scholarship needs many more individuals like R.J. Hollingdale if one of the most profound,original and critically important figures of the modern world is to be given proper justice.More importantly the public sorely needs to have the means to better understand why this philosopher is the axis on which all philosophy of the last century turns.Most of what Nietzsche wrote is still terribly misunderstood and reviled for no good reason.Hollingdale is one of the few,but hopefully the beginning of a flood of well thought out,accurate and sober scholars who will help integrate this most fascinating and courageous philosopher into our public discourse and common knowledge.

perfect antedote to presumptuous thinking about nietzsche
this book should prove useful for readers looking for a well-written, intelligent, and accessible introduction to this often very difficult and enigmatic thinker. hollingdale tackles head on many common misconceptions of nietzsche (i.e. that he was a nihilist, an anti-semite, a fascist) through the use of extensive quotes and poignant commentary. we see the development of his thought, from his youthful admiration of wagner and schopenhauer, through to his mature explications of the idea of life as will to power, and the theme of eternal recurrence. for the disciplined student this book proves to be of great value as well, offering insights into the personality of the man himself, through numerous letters and recollections from those who knew him most intimately. this is a great biography, respectful and humane, but also willing to acknowledge nietzsche's shortcomings and possible confusions as to his own state of mind and health.

Still the definitive biography
Hollingdale worked side by side with the dean of all Nietzsche scholars, Walter Kaufmann, for many years. His biography of Nietzsche parallels Kaufmann's groundbreaking study "Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist", a watershed in American Nietzsche scholarship. While Kaufmann's work has been eclipsed (see R. Schacht's "Nietzsche") in terms of philosophical sophistication, Holligdale's biography of Nietzsche remains the very best in detail, breadth, cogency, and intimacy. Its style is unobtrusive and flowing, making it easily accessible to both the everyday reader and the student of the history of ideas. It is indispensible to anyone with even the slightest interest in Nietzsche.

The perfect antidote to MTV.
R.J. Hollingdale's seminal work continues to dazzle in this dumbed down age. Thank goodness it has been made available for a new generation, hungry for such intellectual gems. This work puts in the shadow Nietzche commentators before and since. If you are serious about learning, not only about Nietzche, but about Western thought in general, then this book is a must. ... Read more

Book Description

A landmark discussion between two great thinkers, vital to an understanding of twentieth-century philosophy and intellectual history. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Mesmerizing and Meditative; The Mind of Heidegger
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If you like Nietzsche, don't ignore Heidegger's monumental achievement.

Walter Kaufmann's Nietzche, psychologist and philosopher and on Heidegger in Kaufmann's, Discovering The Mind, Vol II, criticizes Heidegger to a great degree. In much of Kaufmann's objections to Heidegger's analogy of Nietzsche include his attempt to explain man's "essential ontology" into what really amounts to anthropomorphism. Also the fact that Heidegger uses texts of Nietzsche from obscure manuscripts over his published works. This, along with Kaufmann's personal encounters with Heidegger, in which Heidegger claimed to have unpublished writings incapable of adequate translation and explanation in his possession, esoteric information, an obvious manifestation of a prideful and arrogant personality.

Now I will agree with the majority of Kaufmann's arguments against Heidegger, including the fact that the man was an active Nazi, a party member and an active advocate of a totalitarian atmosphere imposed at the University he taught at. And it must be noted; there is no anti-semtic writing here, there is only deep and profound analytic treatment of Nietzsche.

Despite all of Kaufmann's valid criticisms and objectifications, I find Heidegger's Nietzsche, both mesmerizing, thought provoking and soul stirring. One needs to recognize this book is Heidegger, not Nietzche and Heidegger is a deep analytical thinker, whereas, Nietzche was both philosophical and poetic and top it all off, psychological. It takes a man like Heidegger to give it the philosophical, analytical style. Perhaps it is bias and to a degree "scandalous," as Kaufmann so brazenly claims, but to ignore these volumes would be foolish. For me, Heidegger's work is monumental and inspirational. If one reads Heidegger with discernment and awareness, then the four volumes of Nietzche are most beneficial and most certainly worth the read, not to pass in one's study of Nietzsche.

In particular the study of the "Will to Power as Art," where the truth is an error since art is the becoming and truth is always the become that is becoming in self positing, in artistic creativity of thought, the affixation on an apparition. And Heidegger's analytical explanation of Nietzsche's "Eternal Return" are far worth this read.

Also in line with this, is the explanation of Kaufmann in Nietzsche's Will To Power; not being self-preservation of Spinoza, nor pleasure principle of Freud, but of power, the power of the self-positing and creative center, not the power that dictates over others, which has been administered by totalitarian and authoritarian governments.

In addition to Kaufmann and Heidegger, Also excellent books:
Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography by Rudiger Safranski
Nietzsche : The Man and his Philosophy - R. J. Hollingdale
Nietzsche: by Karl Jaspers

Long-winded
Heidegger is a man who knows how to fill up a full class period with lots of talk. It would be possible to condense this book, the transcripts of two lecture courses given in 1936 and 1938, into a book 1/4 the length of the current tome. First of all, the time spent on Nietzsche's Nachlass is not particularly fruitful. What Nietzsche has to say regarding the eternal recurrence and the will-to-power can be found, and in the mature form, in BGE and Zarathustra. The lectures are interesting in some respects, for instance the chapter on Nietzsche and positivism is interesting and worth consulting in connection with "Plato's Doctrine of Truth." The reading of Kant's Third Critique is unique as a demonstration of Heidegger's approval of Kant, specifically the treatment of the beautiful.

Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together
Prior to reading this book, Kaufmann was my favorite interpreter of Nietzsche's writings; but now, Heidegger has the prize. No other book that I have read on Nietzsche has come close to the depth and detail of this work. Heidegger masterfully exposits the concepts of will to power and eternal return to illumine Nietzsche's whole philosophical project in a way that I just haven't encountered previously.

A fair criticism of this book might note that Heidegger draws parallels between Nietzsche and himself (Being and Time: being = will to power; time = eternal return), and that this suggests he may be reading more than is really there. But considering how cryptic some of the original writings are, he'd almost have to. In his own defense, Heidegger does all his thinking right before our eyes, so to speak, and I'm satisfied that any possible invention on his part is true to the original concepts.

Where this book really shines is in its handling of the eternal return. This is Nietzsche's most troubling idea, and many commentators treat it as mere novelty and move on. I must confess that I used to think it was Nietzsche's Achilles' heel; a sort of personal fancy that he worked into the background for giggles. But Heidegger proves the opposite to be true. It is really the mature fruit of Nietzsche's whole project; and along with the will to power, a truly exciting and profound view of the phenomena of life.

Forget about any other books on Nietzsche
I read the volumes on The Will To Power as Art and as Knowledge whilst at university studying philosophy and it illuminated Nietzsche's thought for me. Heidegger's is the only worthy exposition of his philosophy because not only does he seem to be the only one capable of comprehending it but he doesn't seek to distort it in any way or use it for his own ends. There are no ulterior motives here : Heidegger lets Nietzsche's philosophy speak for itself - and what a magnificent and awe-inspiring philosophy it is ! If you have ever wondered, as I certainly had prior to finding these works, about the precise meaning of Nietzsche's thought of the 'Eternal Recurrence of The Same', or how it relates to the 'Will to Power', then these are the book you want to read. I had become thoroughly frustrated at the cursory treatment which this part of N.'s philosophy receives elsewhere, but Heidegger shows that the thought of 'Eternal Recurrence' is in truth one of the two indispensable fundamental elements of N.'s philosophy - along with 'Will To Power', without which the thought of Eternal Recurrence cannot truly be thought. The lecture course 'Nietzsche' (reproduced in these books) is a comprehensive and faithful account of Nietzsche's thought (and life) - perhaps the only genuine one. It will also help those who know about Nietzsche's ideas but haven't encountered Heidegger's or can't see the relation between these two giants of Western thinking.

Excellent Book
Having taken a class on Nietzsche at DePaul University with D.F. Krell, I highly suggest this book as it helped me keep up with his class. This book was not the topic of discussion in the class, but the book added more color to the class for me.

D.F. Krell provides wonderful insights in his essary in this collection and he provides a wonderful translation.

If you would like to dig deeper in Nietzsche's past, I suggest reading D.F. Krell's book "The Good European" as this is a

very beautiful book and well written! ... Read more

Amazon.com

Stories of famously eccentric Princetonians abound--such as that of chemist Hubert Alyea, the model for The Absent-Minded Professor, or Ralph Nader, said to have had his own key to the library as an undergraduate. Or the "Phantom of Fine Hall," a figure many students had seen shuffling around the corridors of the math and physics building wearing purple sneakers and writing numerology treatises on the blackboards. The Phantom was John Nash, one of the most brilliant mathematicians of his generation, who had spiraled into schizophrenia in the 1950s. His most important work had been in game theory, which by the 1980s was underpinning a large part of economics. When the Nobel Prize committee began debating a prize for game theory, Nash's name inevitably came up--only to be dismissed, since the prize clearly could not go to a madman. But in 1994 Nash, in remission from schizophrenia, shared the Nobel Prize in economics for work done some 45 years previously.

Economist and journalist Sylvia Nasar has written a biography of Nash that looks at all sides of his life. She gives an intelligent, understandable exposition of his mathematical ideas and a picture of schizophrenia that is evocative but decidedly unromantic. Her story of the machinations behind Nash's Nobel is fascinating and one of very few such accounts available in print (the CIA could learn a thing or two from the Nobel committees). This highly recommended book is indeed "a story about the mystery of the human mind, in three acts: genius, madness, reawakening." --Mary Ellen Curtin ... Read more

Reviews (253)

An ambitious biography
Now that the Ron Howard film has been released, it is difficult to review the book on its own merits. Yet this biography is so strong, it can stand on its own. Nasar is an excellent writer who can create excellent pen pictures of life at RAND, MIT and Princeton. She shows great style in creating the environment of the late 1940s and the 1950s. Nash emerges as a complex, demanding and flawed person - an individual. Nash has since refuted the claims of anti-semitism and homosexuality in the book, but it is good to see that Nasar does not side step the issues at all. It is probably prudent to read Nash's comments on the book before making a judgement.

Where Nash is weak is in her descriptions of mathematical formulae. She does not appear to have any real understanding of the mathematics and I would have thought a plain English explanation of his work would have strengthened the biography. I got a little frustrated that she did not tackle this task. Yet it is perhaps a measure of Nash's genius that the ideas are so complex they cannot be easily reduced to a paragraph. Still she could have tried harded in this area. Nasar tends to get around this problem, by getting another expert to describe the brilliance of the idea, rather than the mathemtical idea itself.

Based on my own experiences with people with schizophrenia, Nash's recovery is remarkable and this is the section is probably the most interesting, perhaps because it is so startling. Even after reading the biogrpahy, I still find it hard to believe that someone could recover given the severity of the illness, so it gives some hope to people who suffer this disability and those close to them.

An absorbing biography and close to a great one.

Beautiful...and Intriguing
John Forbes Nash, Jr. was a genius who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and was in and out of mental institutions for most of his life. Nasar's book, as she states so succinctly in her prologue, is Nash's story, "in three acts: genius, madness, reawakening."

Naturally introverted, even at a young age, Nash was described as being "bookish and slightly odd." His mother had him reading by the time he was four and instead of coloring books, his father gave him science books to read. But despite his parents' efforts, the young Nash was prone to daydreaming in school, which led his teachers to describe him as an underachiever. A loner and the ultimate nerd, his best friends were books, his bedroom resembled a science lab, he was always the last to be chosen for baseball, and at a school dance, he danced with chairs rather than girls.

Although his elementary school math teachers complained he couldn't do the work, his mother noticed he wasn't following the teachers' instructions because he had devised a simpler way of solving the problems. By high school, he was deciphering problems his chemistry teacher wrote on the blackboard, without using pencil or paper. In college, his math professors would call on Nash when they themselves ran into problems solving complex equations they were presenting to their classes.

But together with his brilliance were eccentricities that became more evident as Nash aged. Those close to him characterized him as "disconnected" and "deeply unknowable."

He had little use for textbooks and was known for solving difficult (and often previously unsolvable) problems using "no references but his own mind." His peers called the results he was able to obtain "beautiful" and "striking", perhaps his greatest achievement being his work on game theory, which led to a Nobel Prize for economics in 1994. He possessed a true love of discovery - while swimming with a friend in California, the two were dragged out to sea by an undercurrent and nearly drowned. Finally reaching shore exhausted, the friend was grateful for surviving while Nash, after briefly catching his breath, re-entered the surf exclaiming, "I wonder if that was an accident. I think I'll go back in and see."

Nash was in California during the Cold War working for the internationally famous think tank known as the RAND Corporation. Funded by the U.S. Air Force, RAND was populated by "the best minds in mathematics, physics, political science, and economics." Their principle focus was developing strategies to deter - or if that failed, to win - a nuclear war against Russia. Suddenly, the game theory Nash had been intrigued by at Princeton had a practical application, for war is the ultimate game of conflict. Years later, a more profitable application would be the FCC's $7-billion sale of cell phone air space to competing communications conglomerates.

Possibly the oddest in an odd bunch of ducks, Nash's math colleagues over the years included a professor who used a mathematical formula to select his suits; the manic-depressive Norbert Wiener (the founder of cybernetics), who was known to say such things as "When we met, was I walking to the faculty club or away from it? For in the latter case I've already had my lunch"; and others who were "beset by shyness, awkwardness, strange mannerisms, and all kinds of physical and psychological tics.'"

By the age of 30 it became apparent Nash was more than just eccentric as he started to display symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia; behaving suspiciously, becoming suspect of others, and finally announcing that "abstract powers from outer space" were communicating with him through encrypted messages printed in the New York Times and broadcast by radio stations. He developed "an obsession with the stock and bond markets," investing his mother's savings, convinced he could outsmart the markets and earn a profit. Instead, the results were "disastrous, to say the least." He was offered a prestigious chair in the mathematics department at the University of Chicago - something he had long strived for - but in response the chairman of the department received a strange letter from Nash declining the offer since he had decided to become the "Emperor of Antarctica" instead.

Eventually, his illness required long periods of hospitalization while he endured drug and insulin shock therapy, with the result being the loss of a considerable portion of his memory. When an associate came to visit during one of his hospital stays, Nash mused, "What if they don't let me out until I'm NORMAL?" Although Nash shared some exquisite company, at one point being hospitalized with the poet Robert Lowell, on the whole he was slightly atypical of the average mental patient. Most don't work on a paper on fluid dynamics while institutionalized, and he took some ribbing for this. Nasar notes an instance when another patient remarked, "Professor, let me show you how one uses a broom."

Despite his illness, the math community rallied around Nash. A colleague remembers, "Everybody wanted to help [him]. His was a mind too good to waste."

By 1990, his illness had gone into remission and he was able to stop taking antipsychotic drugs, while learning to separate rational thinking from delusional thinking. In spite of his amazing recovery, awarding him with the Nobel Prize was a contentious issue due to his history of schizophrenia. But once awarded, there was resolve that the right decision had been made about a very worthy individual. One committee member recalls, "We resurrected him in a way. It was emotionally satisfying." Soon after it was announced he had won, Nash half-joked "he hoped that getting the Nobel would improve his credit rating because he really wanted a credit card."

Nasar's engaging account of Nash's life and work is both comprehensive and well-written. It is highly recommended reading if you're looking for the full story.

A Beautiful Mind
John Nash's story is truly inspirational. I could not stop the audio until I got to the end!

John Nash, a mathematical genius, had many ups and downs in his life, including a diagnosed mental illness and various social problems that made his life painful and complicated. His Nobel-prize winning work occurred while he was writing his dissertation at Princeton. He was not recognized until later in his life for his ground-breaking contribution to "game theory".

His story is one not only of his incredible gift, mental illness and remission, but really one of personal victory. In the end, he learns to live in harmony with those around him doing what he enjoyed most.

One of my most recent favorites!

An amazing piece of detective work
As I have said in the title, this book is an amazing piece of detective work about the life of Great John Nash. This is by far the work that beats the movie. If you have seen it, do not stop there - read the book, because it is TRUE! If you are interested into mathematics, into the Game theory - read it, not to learn the science, but to appreciate the scientist! However, I still give it 4 stars since the level of writing drops a little after exhilarating first few chapters. Nevertheless this is a great read!!!

a not-really-that-beautiful mathematician
(hey everyone else is making a pun with their titles so why not me?)

well this book has been well commented on so i'll try to keep this brief.

first, it is fact that many great mathematicians develop some sort of mental illness (it happened to kurt godel, georg cantor, and even issac newton). nash, then, is not really an unusual case.

what does make him interesting, then, is the fact that he had "reawakened" from his illness and continued to do math in his old age. such among mathematic circles is very rare.

and his math is indeed great. nash's ability to solve problems concerning manifolds and other topological spaces is still making waves in math today. the layman unfortunately, like nasar, doesn't appreciate this fully, which is a shame. i would have liked to get a mathematician's view on johnny's life.

but, as a pop bio, it's not too bad. i agree with other reviews that it contained too much minute detail, and her references to nash looking like a golden god were overstated and a bit offputting. i wouldn't be surprised if nasar was really in love with nash. (she might have dedicated her book to alicia to subdue any suspicions of that sort.)

in the end, though, we see the life of one of the greatest modern mathematicians, through triumph and tribulation, which was the ultimate goal of the book. i would recommend this book to some and not to others. ... Read more

Book Description

The opening essay of this Companion provides a chronologically organized introduction to and summary of Nietzsche's published works, while also providing an overview of their basic themes and concerns.It is followed by three essays on the appropriation and misappropriation of his writings, and a group of essays exploring the nature of Nietzsche's philosophy and its relation to the modern and postmodern world.The final contributions consider Nietzsche's influence on the twentieth century in Europe, the United States and Asia. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

nothin much here
This is like the other cambridge companions: it is not a reference work, is not thorough, is not authoritative nor objective. This is a collection of essays tending toward the highly speculative, each around 50 pages in length. They range from the silly to the ok, and none are very impressive. The cambridge companion series is misleadingly titled. They cater to narrow interests, not to the general public. Students who need a basic understanding of Nietzsche before they start delving into special topics will find almost no assistance here. Most of the material is of the professorial, specialized, not-generally-interesting variety.

Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche
I felt that this Cambridge Companion was extremely well written and provides an inquisitive and responsible look at Nietzsches works. It provides a rational and judicious insight into Nietzsches philosophical writtings, as well as his personal life, allowing the reader to further understand this often times misrepresented philosopher. Any Cambridge Companion is a must for an individual who is interested in a deep study of a philosopher for it acts as a teacher; guiding the student through difficult passages and texts. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

A landmark discussion between two great thinkers--the second (combining volumes III and IV) of two volumes inquiring into the central issues of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

The Heideggerian view of Nietzsche in its entirety
Due to the political affiliation of Martin Heidegger and his place in history, it is perhaps difficult to analyze his works objectively. The temptation might be then to lift him from history, with the imagined goal of perhaps cleansing him from the troubling influences he chose to be in. But however Heidegger is read, whether in historical context, or from a "modern standpoint", he does have some interesting and original things to say about Friedrich Nietzsche. His politics was destructive, as history has shown, and that is a fact that can be discussed completely outside the context of this book.

This is a lengthy book, and concentrates on Nietzsche's work "The Will to Power". Space therefore prohibits a detailed review, but some of the more interesting discussions by the author include: 1. The classifying of Nietzsche as being the "last metaphysician" of the West. The author believes that his thought was a consummation of Western philosophy, and that the will to power is an appreciation of the decision that must be made as to whether the this final age is the conclusion of Western history or a prelude to another beginning. Nietzsche wanted philosophy to not shy away from the predicament it found itself in. Therefore the author encourages philosophers to not merely "toy" with philosophical thoughts, as this will place them merely at the boundary of the set of important philosophical issues. The will to power is a sign of courage that consists of shedding one's reservations, and in recognizing the stakes in the issues at hand. 2. The reading of Nietzsche as someone who believed that the essence of life is in "self-transcending enhancement", and not in Darwinian struggle. Value is to be equated with the enhancement of life. 3. The author's overview and explanation, and deduction of what "truth" meant for Nietzsche. Truth can become a "de-realization" and a hindrance to life, and therefore not be condition of life, and thus not a value. But for the author, Nietzsche wants to overcome nihilism, and this implies therefore that there must be a value greater than truth. And what is this value? It is art, says Nietzsche, which is "worth more than truth". 4. The author's discussion of the alleged biologism of Nietzsche. A reading of Nietzsche might tempt one to conclude that he was, but the author cautions that such a characterization of his writings would be unfounded. One must not base an understanding on mere impressions, and "unlearn" the abuse that has been leveled against the "catchword" called "biologism". The author therefore suggests that we must learn to "read". 5. The description of Nietzsche's epistemology as "schematizing a chaos". For Nietzsche, this schematizing is an act of imposing upon chaos as much regularity and as many forms as our practical needs require. This is an interesting move, for is the characterization of something as chaotic itself subject to the imposition of this regularity? But the author is certainly aware of this problem, for he discusses in detail the Nietzschean concept of chaos. His reading of Nietzsche in this regard is that chaos does not mean confusion or the removal of all order. It rather means that order is concealed, and is not understood immediately. Most eloquently, the author describes the Nietzschean epistemology as a "stream that in its flow first creates the banks and turns them toward each other in a more original way than a bridge ever would." Such a concept of knowledge may seem poetic and too ephemeral to support what is needed for activities such as science and technology, and this is correct. 6. The discussion of Nietzsche's stand on the law of contradiction. Heidegger reads Nietzsche as holding to (without an explicit admission on Nietzsche's part) an Aristotelian notion of this law, saying in effect that taking the position that the law of contradiction is the highest of all principles demands an answer to the question of what sorts of assertions it already fundamentally presupposes. Again following Aristotle, Heidegger uses 'Being" in his most powerful sense here, as it is 'Being' that has its presence and in permanence. This means that beings represented as such will take into account these two requirements via being "at the same time" and "in the same respect". But this permanence is disregarded when an individual makes a contradiction. It is a loss of memory about what is to be grasped in a "yes" and "no". Such an activity will not be harmless, says Heidegger, as one day its catastrophic consequences will be manifested. Heidegger sums up the law of noncontraction as that the "essence of beings consists in the constant absence of contradiction". Further, Heidegger says, Nietzsche's interpretation of the law of contraction is one of an "imperative". This means that its use is a declaration of "what is to count" and follows Nietzsche's conception of truth as a "holding-to-be-true". Nietzsche therefore says that "not being able to contradict is proof of an incapacity, not of a 'truth.'"

Heidegger in Secret Sacred Cowsville
This is heavy reading, as only philosophy would dare to be. It involves internal hysteria about matters which ordinary people are supposed to avoid in a way which Heidegger called the "often practiced procedure" of taking Nietzsche's revelations "as the harbinger of erupting madness." (p. 3) What Heidegger contributes to the psychotic multiplicity is the recognition that Nietzsche's thought illustrates a particular philosophy. As the first paragraph of this book puts it, "Nietzsche is that thinker who trod the path of thought to 'the will to power.'" By the next page, Heidegger turns away from individual matters to what he feels, in the agony of our times, to be really philosophical issues. "Neither the person of Nietzsche nor even his work concern us when we make both in their connection the object of a historiological and psychological report." (p. 4) This is not simple reporting: people tend to think most deeply about whatever they find most troubling. Nietzsche could relate this kind of thing to the bite of a dog on a stone. Nothing is yielding here. Objections which suggest themselves to anyone who tries to observe this effort might best be directed elsewhere, but in the realm of philosophy, this is the best example of the notion that science is a sacred cow. A full understanding of the mental effort involved in this exercise might be closer to stripping away any individual's defenses than to the kind of herd instinct of those parties whose imperviousness to thought is typical of what a political philosophy would normally represent. This is not an effort to produce a sacred cow. This is an attempt to penetrate the heart of secret sacred cowsville. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

A Provocative Woman
This is one of the most curious books I have ever read: on the one hand, there is the story of a failed 19th C German colony in Paraguay, founded on eugenic principles that would be echoed in Hitler's time; on the other hand, there is the biography of one of the most overlooked figures in 19th C philosophy - Elisabeth Nietzsche, sister of the famed philosopher, and apparently the one who twisted her brother's ideas to conform to her own concept of racial purity (and a woman who Hitler courted in his early years of power).
The author, Ben Macintyre, does an admirable job of bringing these two stories together: Elizabeth and her husband, "professional anti-semite" Bernhard Forster, attempt the Paraguayan colony as 'New Germany' (Nueva Germania); this colony was designed to appeal to 'true' Germans who wanted to establish not only an ideological power base, but flee economic problems at home. The colony does not succeed, as Macintyre discovers when he journeys there in 1991: there are a few of the old families around, and the dangers of inbreeding, according to one recent German immigrant doctor, are becoming noticeable, heralding the inevitable decline of what Elisabeth envisioned as her own pure, private kingdom.
As the parallel story of Nietzsche develops, we see perhaps Elisabeth's real impact on history: her reinterpretation - or even reinvention - of her brother's theories. Macintyre makes an excellent case for Elisabeth's "mythologizing" of her brother and his works to further her own agenda (and help set the stage for Hitler and company's racial programs of the 1930s): although Nietzsche himself was "anti-anti-semitic", during his insanity and after his death, Elisabeth shamelessly made herself the custodian - and editor - of many of his works, linking her brother to an ideology he actually despised. It is no wonder that Nietzsche's named became philosophical "mud", as Macintyre recounts. This part of the book is worth reading for the blatant rewriting of history done by a woman who would not apologize for her views or actions (and whose death in 1935 prevented her from seeing the result of racist views she helped promulgate).
Macintyre's physical investigation of what happened to New Germany is entertaining, and provides a respite from the depressing - but riveting - narrative of the rest of the book. His concern with becoming a 'stud' to a colony of desperate young German colonists is hilarious, as are his equestrian, translating, and lodging adventures. When he finds the remnants of New Germany, the book seems to lack content - until you realize, as Macintyre does -- that the colonists' dreams for a racially 'pure' paradise is exactly what will cause them to disappear. The lack if information on the descendents of the original colonists seems to be because they either won't talk, or avoid talking by hiding in the forest. The pictures included in the book provide a great backdrop to what the colony wanted, and what it actually received. The book also relates a brief history of Paraguay and several colorful characters (some not even connected with the events the book is about), that put the whole thing in an understandable historical context.

fun read
A biography of Nietzsche's sister Elizabeth that would make good airplane reading. Partly that's because the bio is hung on a story, that of the author's trip to backwoods Paraguay to look for the colony she helped start.

Tell me more!
I enjoyed this book because I found the story of Nueva Germania very interesting, although it turned out to be more of a biography of Elizabeth Nietzsche. I was expecting more on the actual inhabitants of Nueva Germania. I think it is still worth reading though because of its unique subject matter.

How could Nietzsche's beautiful ideas be so misunderstood?
This book is interesting up to a point, and it contains some good anecdotes. But the author's almost touching need to prove that the Third Reich's admiration for Nietzsche was based solely on a combination of willful misreading and Elisabeth Nietzsche's influence leads him into all manner of logical quagmires.

At one point, he claims that Nietzsche's idea of the "superman" is "a concept intended to inspire but one which would develop sinister overtones in the wrong hands." This begs several questions: Whose are the right hands? How many people read--and believe-- Nietzsche without considering themselves to be at least larval supermen? Why should anyone be surprised when a philosopher who "rejected Christian morality and all other ideologies with moral imperatives," who claimed that "man should be trained for war and woman for the recreation of the warrior," and who trumpeted the obligation of the self-styled strong to stamp out the "weak" is well received among brutal eugenicists with a lust for military power? I would think that a necessary competence for a career in philosophy would be to possess some slight awareness of the practical implications of one's ideas.

MacIntyre makes a convincing argument that Elisabeth Nietzsche was responsible for trying to pass her brother off as a rabid anti-Semite, but leaves one wondering precisely what benign effects Nietzsche's own drab and cruel political thought was supposed to have had on the world. Nietzsche would surely have rejected the notion that he was dealing in abstractions, so it seems disingenuous to treat his political notions as some form of Platonic ideal. MacIntyre's confusion is especially evident when, after praising Nietzsche for freeing mankind from the tyranny of false morality, he calls the Nazis "moral cripples"...beyond good and evil indeed!

A must if you're interested in this century's politics
MacIntyre's book casts a light over a little known part of our history from the end of the last century over the the Weimar republic (1918-33) and onwards. It also shows how a philosopher's work can be totaly misused in order to fit other purposes; in this case the furthering of nazi theories still, unfortunately, not dead. ... Read more

Reviews (8)

Some Content but Mostly Irrelevant
This is one of the well known hatchet jobs done on Nietzsche over the last two decades in order to sell the idea that Nietzsche is a postmodernist -- a person who buys the Derridian line that there is nothing outside the text. But Nietzsche is not one of those types. Indeed, 'there is nothing outside the text' is one of those pieces of philosophical insanity that can only be compared to other such pieces: like Parmenides belief that nothing moves, or Barkeley's belief that there is no such thing as matter, or Palto's belief that things do not have their properties, and so on. The position Nehamas takes is an outgrowth of German Idealism, which is just Berkeley all over again. Nietzsche was a realist. He thought of German philosophy as a flight from reality, and a coward's philosophy designed to make a big show. The very notion of life as literature is self-contradictory. But, of course, like all postmodern theorists, Nehamas is un-selfcritical. His rectitude is all that matters, and it cannot be questioned.

How NOT to read Nietzsche
Strongly influenced by an analytical interpretation of Nietzsche from Danto's Nietzsche as Philosopher Nehamas does more harm to Nietzsche than good. Nehamas's own "creative" interpretation of Nietzsche is utterly irresponsible. Interpreting Nietzsche analytical only makes Nietzsche's moral properties run amok. Nehamas interprets Nietzsche like most Christians interpret the Bible: He takes away a few things he can use, dirties and confounds the remainder and reviles the whole. Nietzsche asserts, rather than believes, that "untruth" is indeed a condition of life. But he does not assert any kind of "theory of truth," as Nehamas would have us to believe. Nietzsche's moral philosophy is Descartian - doubting to believe to discover one's own perspective of truth - not a dogmatic religious truth! His intent is rather, to give us his perspective to help us discover truth in ourselves, not in Nietzsche, himself.

a book that deserves careful reading
This now-famous book is probably the most original work on Nietzsche in English; it is about the very idea of interpretation as well as about Nietzsche.

You may not agree with Mr. Nehamas's interpretation on Nietzsche, but you have to off-cap to Nehamas's striking originality.

There are better books than this one.
Each chapter of Nehemas' book begins by problematizing an issue central to Nietzsche's philosophy. The way in which Nehemas problematizes these issues can make your head spin because he throws so many considerations at you all at once before finally resolving them in the last few pages. Although the ideas are good, they suffer from a poor presentation.

The best book on Nietzsche
While Michael Tanner's criticism of this book in his Nietzsche is valid (Nehamas does quote way too much from The Will to Power), it is by far the only book on Nietzsche that I own that actually suggests how to use Nietzsche's philosophy in life. Who cares that the world is the will to power is a fact? This book suggests that perspectivism, will to power and surviving the thought of eternal recurrence are ways of thinking in which we can enhance our lives. ... Read more

Amazon.com

As "The Golfer of the Century," Jack Nicklaus is arecognized authority on the game's history and direction, and in his 13thbook, My Story, he shares the details of his most impressivevictories. With 20 major championships under his belt, he has plenty ofhighlights to share, including shot-by-shot analyses of his classic battles withfellow legends Arnold Palm